(Or how I came to love a minsnomered pear clafoutis) 

Slump, buckle, crisp, cobbler, clafoutis.  But never have I heard of a flognarde. What do all these imaginative names have in common?  Answer:  a sweetened fruit dish with some sort of crumb or batter topping.

With our little pear tree’s bounty (about 40 pears), we have been exploring seasonal dishes.  Aside from dehydrating some (yum), I decided to make a pear dish for breakfast.  While I love all manner of fruit crisps, I’m trying to cook gluten free lately.  This offering accomplished that. Plus, I learned that the term clafoutis really only applies to cherry dishes. So, for this pear dish, I should pronounce it a Pear Flognarde!  Who knew?

This dish made two individual servings.  It was perfect for breakfast for Mr. Artifact and me. It is not very sweet, so if you like things sweeter you will want to top with whipped cream.

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 T butter
• 1 ripe pear, sliced (skin on) (Alternate: 1/2 C dried/dehydrated pears for the main dish and half a pear to slice on top)
• 2 T diced candied ginger
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 C milk (chose A2, goat, or raw milk if you can)
• 1 t arrowroot powder
• 2 ½ T banana flour
• ¼ t almond extract
• 3 T honey
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ t grated nutmeg
• 2 T sliced or slivered almonds

Method

• Heat oven to 350 F.
• Butter ramekins or individual tartlet bowls.
• Make batter of eggs, milk, arrowroot, banana flour, almond extract, honey, salt and nutmeg.  Set aside.  You can do this in a blender.  It works well that way.
• Reserve 6-8 nice pear slices for the topping. Chop the rest of the pears and put equally into the ramekins. (Alternate: use your dehydrated pears instead.)
• Sprinkle with slivered or sliced almonds.
• Sprinkle with diced crystallized ginger.
• Pour batter equally over both dishes.
• Top with decorative slices of pear.
• Cook for 15-18 minutes in your oven. (I used my convection oven. For regular oven, you may need to cook a minute or two longer or increase heat to 360 F.)

Let cool for 5-10 minutes. 

Serve as is, or add crème fraiche or sweetened whipped cream.

Note:  The pears will have a lot of juice. These will come out in the cooking.  It is natural to have pear juice in the dish.  The batter will be well cooked, and there will still be pear juice.  Do not despair.  It is delicious even if it  may be soupy. If you do the alternate version with dehydrated pears, you will not have the juicy stuff, and it will be a bit more cake-like. For the record, Mr. Artifact suggested this change, and we really liked it.

Many thanks to Peggy Wilson Fishman for her help with editing and the correct spelling of clafoutis 🙂